The American College Series 

ARE DENOMINATIONAL 
COLLEGES A NECESSITY? 



JOHNSTON 



ARE DENOMINATIONAL 
COLLEGES A NECESSITY? 



BY 
REV. HUGH JOHNSTON, D.D. 

WOMAN'S COLLEGE OF BALTIMORE 



NEW YORK 

Board of Education 

of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
150 FIFTH AVENUE 

1909 



\p 



a> 



\ 



v v ,^ 



Copyright, 1909, by Thomas Nicholson 



RY of CONGRESS 
!•//;. Copies KeeeWed 

jun lb lbOd 

?7 /4 \c. No. 

f copy ' . 



Are Denominational Colleges a Necessity? 
By Rev. Hugh Johnston, D.D. 

The present state of our denominational colleges and universities is one of 
absorbing interest. By denominational we do not mean sectarian institutions, 
but the schools of organized Christianity where the work is carried on — not in 
a sectarian or sectional, but in a Christian and national spirit, where the high 
and noble purpose is to have the whole training and culture informed and per- 
vaded with the spirit of the religion of Christ. 

All religions are more or less educative. Take Asia, the birthplace of the 
race, where the great problems of science, government, education, and religion 
will receive their final solution, and we have the ancestral education of China, 
the caste education of India, the Magi training of Persia, where the wife must 
kneel at the feet of her husband each morning and ask nine times, "What do 
you wish that I should do ?" The schools of Egypt were ecclesiastical. Among 
the classical nations of Europe there was the martial instruction of Sparta, the 
aesthetic teaching of Athens, and the pagan culture of Rome. The end of 
Hebrew education was to make faithful servants of Jehovah, and Jewish learn- 
ing flourished in the famous rabbinical schools. 

When Christ, the great Teacher, the true Educator of mankind, came he 
laid the foundations of a new, broad, and democratic education, by giving an 
endless worth to the individual. The very idea of education for the people, for 
the masses, is a Christian idea. The early Christians had their system of educa- 
tion ; and great schools flourished in Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Corinth, Ephesus, 
and Alexandria. When persecutions came and the blood of the first witnesses 
flowed in torrents over the Roman empire, the martyrs thought of their schools 
and rejoiced in the certain triumph of Christ. The monastic schools of the 
Dark Ages kept alive the flame of learning. Knightly education flourished in 
the latter half of the Middle Ages as well as schools for the training of the 
artisan class. Next came the influence of the Crusades and the spread of 
Mohammedan lore. The Arabians, who originated chemistry, taught mathe- 
matics, art, and philosophy, became the intellectual leaders of Europe, and the 
schools of Spain imparted their intellectual treasures to the world. Then arose 
great universities like Bologna with its twelve thousand students, and Paris 
with its twenty thousand. 

With the Reformation came a new era of learning and progress, a revival 
of the Saviour's teaching of the essential value of the individual. Protestant- 
ism became the mother of popular education. Germany obtained her common 
schools from Martin Luther, and Scotland her love of learning from John 
Knox. The awakened Christians at once thought of their schools. After that 
dreadful struggle by which William of Orange triumphed over Spanish oppres- 
sion he asked the people of the Netherlands which they preferred, relief from 

3 



taxes or the foundation of a university. They answered, "The school! The 
school!" and thence sprang up the University of Leyden where Arminius 
taught Oxford, "that sweet city with its dreaming spires," shone with the light 
of the Reformation. A German once said to Dr. Whewell, master of Trinity, 
"You don't make scholars here." "But we make men," was the answer. That 
is the purpose of a college — to develop the highest type of Christian character. 
The earliest colleges in this country were founded and maintained by 
Christian churches. Harvard had its beginning in 1638 through the munifi- 
cence of a minister of the gospel. Its seal declares "Christo et Ecclesia," and 
one of the early rules was, "Every student shall consider that the main end of his 
life and studies is to know the true God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life." 
William and Mary College, the venerable mother of the University of Virginia, 
started in 1692. Dr, James Blair went to England to secure a charter from the 
king and queen. When it was granted Attorney-General Seymour demurred to 
issuing the document. "But," said Dr. Blair, "Virginians have souls to be 
saved as well as Englishmen." With an oath he damned their souls and said, 
"Let them make tobacco." Blair found great difficulty in obtaining subscrip- 
tions, and still greater difficulty in collecting them; but he was a Scotchman, 
and persisted, and for eighty years that college was the most civilizing force 
in the South. Yale College was born of church action in 1698. "It was founded," 
says Professor Fisher, "by religious people for religious ends." Princeton, 
which started in 1746 from Tennant's log college, taught that "without educa- 
tion piety would cease to be intelligent, and without piety the desire for educa- 
tion would be lessened." King's College, now Columbia, was founded in 1758 
by the Episcopalians; Brown University in 1764 by the Baptists; Rutgers in 
1776 by the Dutch Reformed; Dartmouth in 1770 by the Congregationalists. 
Had Cokesbury survived it would have ranked as one of the pioneer colleges. 
Nearly two thirds of the colleges and universities of our land are under denomi- 
national control. The only college founded before the eighteenth century that 
was not the creation of the church, or of individual ministers, was the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania, but even in this the Bible was named as a text-book, 
the founder, Benjamin Franklin, saying, "When human science has done its 
utmost, and when we have thought the youth worthy of the honors of the 
seminary, yet still we must recommend them to the Scriptures of God, in order 
to complete their wisdom, to regulate their conduct through life, and guide 
them to happiness forever." The twenty-five institutions that were chartered 
as colleges or universities during the first two hundred years that followed the 
landing of the Pilgrims and the settlement at Jamestown were, with but two or 
three exceptions, founded with the religious motive; and the majority of those 
established since that time have been organized with the same motive. They have 
ceased to be prominently ecclesiastical, but they are vitally related to Christianity. 
The great Protestant denominations have little that is sufficiently essential 
to separate them. Because of the inseparable connection between true education 
and religion the church has a right and duty, as well as a fitness and ability, 
to conduct efficiently the work of education which, to be complete and symmet- 
rical, must be Christian. The supreme mission of the denominational college 
is to be Christian. It has no charter for its existence unless it is permeated 



through and through with the spirit of Christ, and stands for the highest ideals 
in moral and spiritual life. In its religious life it is to be as little denominational 
as possible, for the narrowness of sectarian aggrandizement is inconsistent with 
the breadth of the college outlook ; while in its scholastic requirements it must 
maintain high and progressive standards and be fruitful of intellectual as well 
as spiritual development. 

Christianity is in itself an influence for higher education. The Christian 
religion is broader than any sect, and these denominational institutions do not 
exist to glorify any particular church or accomplish its own ends, but to serve 
the Church of God and advance the public welfare. The interests of education 
and of Christianity lie along the same lines, and he cannot see far who cannot 
perceive that a denomination may administer without narrowness and in the 
fullness of the Christian spirit a school for the general welfare. The Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church has, besides one hundred and seventeen seminaries and 
unclassified institutions, some fifty-four colleges and universities possessing 
forty-eight millions of dollars in buildings and endowments and with an annual 
attendance of over sixty thousand students ; but every college has a thoroughly 
unsectarian constitution. The charter of Wesleyan University, Middletown, so 
far back as 1831, provided that "no resident professor or any other officer shall 
be made ineligible for or by reason of any religious tenets which he may pro- 
fess, nor be compelled by any by-law or otherwise to subscribe to any religious 
test whatever." The charter of Ohio Wesleyan declares that "this university 
is to be forever conducted on the most liberal principles, accessible to all 
religions and designed for our citizens in general." Our institutions have a 
record before the world of more than half a century of collegiate work in which 
they have given a liberal arts education to tens of thousands, including all 
religious denominations, but there has been no sectarian influence exerted in 
all that history; there has been no estrangement of students from the faith of 
their childhood. They have devoted themselves to the work of Christian 
culture not for the mere aggrandizement of a sect but for the service of the 
community. While broadly and liberally in sympathy with the spirit and methods 
of scientific inquiry, they have not neglected the personal, ethical, and spiritual 
side of college life. While endeavoring to make Christian scholars and bring 
into their hearts those deeper sources of divine grace, they would have been 
unfaithful to the charge committed to them had they allowed a sectarian or 
proselyting spirit to gain a foothold within their academic halls, for Christian 
education means education of the highest and broadest type. 

The denominational college, then, represents the relation between learning 
and religion. "But," says one, "is not all education religious that is conducted 
in a religious spirit, and can a college be Christian any more than a science 
can be Christian or a manufacturing establishment Christian?" True, an 
institution cannot be Christian in the same sense that a person is Christian ; 
but in a college we are dealing with persons, personal lives, personal wills, 
personal destinies, and whatever deals with persons can surely be Christian. An 
institution may be officered by Christian men while its main purpose may be 
simply scholarship. The Christian college must do more ; it must regard itself 
as a great agency of moral and religious influence. It should be as well pro- 

5 



vided as other schools of learning with equipments, with scholarly ability, and 
power to instruct; but while not lacking in scholastic qualities, it is charged 
with a still more sacred and personal work, having as its end the stability of the 
nation and the advancement of the kingdom of God. This work is not the pres- 
entation of the forms of worship of a particular denomination or the claims 
of a particular view of truth, but the impartation of the fundamental truths of 
Christianity, and the unfolding of a larger, deeper, truer educational life. 

We have reached an epoch in the history of Christian education. The 
nondenominational and State institutions have entered upon a more aggressive 
educational policy, and the question has arisen among many Christians whether we 
are not wasting money, energy, and intellect in maintaining our denominational 
schools. Is church control essential to the accomplishment of certain aims in 
higher education or does its abandonment indicate the loss of such ideals? 
Does church control promote the spiritual life of our institutions? Can Chris- 
tian education be conserved without it? Shall we emphasize more than ever 
the Christian aspects of education and infuse new life into our denominational 
schools, or shall we give up the contest and leave them to starve and die? The 
situation is critical and we are conscious of the issues at stake. On the one 
hand, the cost of maintaining our church schools is out of all proportion to the 
obligations contemplated when the work began; on the other hand, their sur- 
render may make way for the triumph of secularism and lead to the emascula- 
tion of Christianity in our land. If the church is to control the institutions she 
has founded and fostered she must be also responsible for their support. 
Authority to control carries with it as never before the obligation to maintain. 
We must either build up our colleges more efficiently, raising their standards 
and increasing their endowments, or surrender our educational work to State 
and privately endowed institutions. 

Look at the New Difficulties which Confront Us 

I. The rapid development of State-supported institutions. There are thirty- 
nine State universities which have, since their organization, received government 
aid to the extent of $80,000,000. The land-grant colleges number twenty-six. 
The high schools also have increased in efficiency and have become closely 
articulated with the State universities. Now, we would deprecate any diminu- 
tion of public interest in higher education, but how to provide religious training 
for students at these State institutions is the difficult problem. Eighty per cent 
of them come from Christian homes. How can we have a complete and effective 
education without moral training? President Eliot has said, "Nobody knows 
how to teach morality effectively without religion." The whole system of State 
instruction is secular and therefore fails to furnish adequate moral leadership 
for the nation. Why should not our State institutions have the privilege of 
teaching the Bible as literature, philosophy, and ethics? Why should not this 
most educative book in all literature be a recognized text-book without offending 
the principles of religious liberty or infringing on the rights of conscience? 
With religion as a personal experience the State has nothing to do ; but with 
social morality, with truth, justice, and righteousness of life the State has 

6 



everything to do. The right of the State to teach morals on the basis of Bible 
ethics is at bottom the right of self-preservation. Each State could and should 
define by statute its own right to instruct in the foundations of social morality 
and righteousness, to teach religion sufficiently to make known to its citizens 
that these laws have their source and origin in the Divine Mind. The State 
institutions seem unable to do this. It is a perplexing situation. We have noth- 
ing to say in the way of angry rhetoric. "More soluble is this by gentleness than 
war." Our State universities and colleges have no permanent organization or 
machinery for taking care of the religious welfare of the student body. The 
Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations are helpful agencies 
in trying to develop a Christian atmosphere in these institutions. Church guilds 
and other organizations are doing a good work. The respective churches in 
our university towns have largely increased their activity among students ; but 
while there is a general attitude of aloofness on the part of the students toward 
the local churches they cannot meet the needs of the case. As long as we believe 
that there can be no true and complete education without religion the church 
cannot desert her educational field. We are not simply duplicating facilities 
which the State has provided, for the State has not assumed and cannot assume 
the entire burden of higher education. We are doing a work that the State can- 
not do. 

2. The nondenominational colleges are an increasing factor in the problem. 
These are privately endowed, like Johns Hopkins, free from ecclesiastical or 
political control, whose position is that of noninterference with the student's 
religious interests. There are also great institutions, like Harvard and Yale, 
Princeton and Amherst, that are no longer denominational and that lean for 
support on the general community. Some of these so-called nondenominational 
institutions that have conferred inestimable benefits upon the nation are allied 
in fact with religious denominations, though in theory on private foundations. 

This brings us to some reasons why the Christian college is still a necessity 
in higher education. 

I. The growing danger of secularism. We see this danger in all our higher 
education. President Nicholas Murray Butler, of Columbia, says that there has 
come a divorce between education and religion to education's distinct loss. 
There has come the idea that manhood and womanhood may be complete with- 
out the religious element of character. But for the full development of intellect 
and character there must be the union of religion with the forces of education. 
Shall higher education be secular or Christian? The problem of religious train- 
ing and of a stronger religious life is a profoundly serious one to-day. Secular 
institutions with the largest equipment and the best intellectual facilities abound 
to minister to the head and not to the heart. We must put conscience-training 
above mind-training. We must have instruction in morals, in business and pro- 
fessional ethics ; we must instil an abhorrence of unfair dealing, with the inflex- 
ible adherence to the highest standards of righteousness and a fearlessness in 
warring against evil wherever found, if we are to have that upbuilding of 
character which is the real aim of education. Our college and university pro- 
fessors are thoughtful, reflective men as a class, but is there no connection 
between the high-handed irresponsibility of finance and industry, the corrupt use 

7 



of wealth, the social disregard for law, and that secular indifference which 
washes its hands of all responsibility for the welfare of college students as 
moral and spiritual beings? To plead for freedom from all sectarian bias, as 
men are pleased to call it, and say that learning must stand by itself and be pur- 
sued along its own lines, by its own methods, and for its own sake, is to ignore all 
that is highest and best in man. Education itself is in danger of taking on that 
narrow spirit which has sometimes characterized religious thinking. A narrow 
scientific spirit is just as unfit for its work as a narrow religious spirit, and is 
generally just as intolerant and dogmatic as the most violent religious bigotry. 
The college must stand for and teach true ideals of life. We must believe 
in the final unity and harmony of all truth, truth of science and truth of 
revelation, accepting that declaration of the Master which is the motto of Johns 
Hopkins University, "The truth shall make you free." The average intelligence 
in the United States is the highest in the world; what about the average 
standard of integrity and morality? Certainly moral and religious training is 
not incompatible with the highest educational culture, and only our Christian 
colleges can give such training. Denominational colleges give this teaching the 
most attentive consideration. They promise greater security for such training 
and greater influence on the lives of the students, for no other institutions are 
likely to be conducted by such distinctively Christian men and scholars. 

2. The relation of the college to the ministry and active membership of the 
church makes the denominational college a necessity. The church must have an 
educated ministry and the Christian college must furnish the men. Seven years 
ago in the theological seminaries of the country eighteen hundred and five were 
enrolled from Christian colleges and only one hundred and ten from State and 
other institutions. Eighty-five per cent of the college trained missionaries sent 
out during the past five years, and ninety-three per cent of the ministry at home 
graduated from Christian colleges. It may be said that those who intend to be 
ministers go to these denominational schools. It may be true that many go 
intending to be ministers; it is also true that many who have gone to other 
institutions intending to be ministers have been turned from their original pur- 
pose by the secular influences so largely dominating them. If, then, we are to 
have an educated ministry our denominational colleges must be maintained. 
Only Christian colleges can furnish candidates for the ministry. Seven per 
cent from State universities and nine per cent from nondenominational schools 
will never supply the pulpits of the land. The Christian college alone can furnish 
the full quota of recruits for our pulpits and mission fields. There must be no 
laxity in the matter of scholarship. The best in the land must be insisted upon, 
a training which lifts up and broadens the whole intellectual firmament; which 
enlarges and enriches the entire nature; but beyond mere scholarship and culture 
there must be brought out the elements of Christian character. 

The Christian college is also better adapted to develop a strong and active 
laity. The demand of the hour is for high and inspired leadership; and where 
can this training be secured but in the colleges which enthrone the living Christ? 
The atmosphere which makes for the spiritual life and draws young men into the 
ministry, is a good atmosphere to develop intelligent active leaders in the church, 
who are destined also to be aggressive leaders in the professional and com- 

8 



mercial world. Our denominational colleges amount to nothing if they are 
not genuinely Christian in spirit, if they show no personal interest in the lives 
of the students. The college atmosphere is so continuous and so powerful that 
if the life is to be all one piece the college must be thoroughly Christian in 
spirit, instruction, administration, and in the personnel of its staff of instruction. 
In secular education knowledge may be imparted in an un-Christian spirit, for 
even God and his providence may be dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders in 
unbelief or a curl of the lips in scOrn. Does it not make a difference whether 
anatomy is taught so as to lead to materialism or to find with Galen a theme for 
praise in every joint, and with Bell an Almighty Designer in the structure of the 
human hand? Whether biology is taught with God as the author of all life 
instead of spontaneous generation? Whether history is taught with God in it or 
as a mere jumble of human affairs; for we hold with Humboldt that history is 
unintelligible without the idea of a higher governing power? Whether astronomy 
shall declare according to a French atheist the glory of La Place and La 
Verrier or according to the psalmist the "Glory of God" — revealing the im- 
mensity of space crowded with worlds on worlds, each bearing the signature 
and stamp of power divine, and filling the mind with thoughts of the grandeur 
of Him "who wheels his throne upon the rolling orbs" ? Has scholarship 
settled upon atheism, agnosticism, or secularism as ultimate and only possible 
truth ? 

We need to-day a mighty army of godly men and women who with all the 
forces of the highest intellectual, moral, and spiritual culture, will push forward 
the conquest of Christ's kingdom, because that kingdom is permeated with the 
truth-seeking spirit ; and if we are going to have a hearty and intense enthusiasm 
for God and humanity the sacred glow must be kindled in the hearts of our 
young collegians; if we are going to send out into the world cultured men and 
women with high ambition and lofty ideals to work and witness for Christ our 
colleges must be the nurseries of the highest Christian life, the inner sanctuaries 
of religion, as well as the home of high intellectual culture. Dr. Pritchett be- 
lieves that what is needed to-day is religious leadership, but says that "the men 
who are religious in the best and deepest sense, the sense which qualifies for 
educational leadership, are not segregated in conformity with denominational 
lines. They belong to the church invisible and universal." Is that true? Can 
we name any educational leaders who are not members of some denomination? 
Religious leaders belong to the organized churches ! We do not want un- 
Christian scholars any more than we want unscholarly Christians as leaders 
of others. The only way to get trained leaders is to maintain Christian 
institutions which shall bring up from generation to generation scholars trained 
in Christian ideals. We are told that the dominating purpose of denominational 
schools is the advancement of a sect, the increase of its influence, the spread of 
its beliefs. But organized Christianity means organized bodies of Christians, and 
as long as there are religious life and inspiration these schools will represent 
Christian education. The church is committed to this work and must perpetually 
maintain her schools and colleges if she is to keep herself in the van of human 
progress, rule the world's thought and bring it into captivity to the obedience of 
Christ. 



3. A strong and wholesome college discipline makes the denominational 
college a necessity. The college should have a keen sense of responsibility for 
the moral life of its students. This cannot be a matter of unconcern to the 
faculty or to those who have a personal interest in the formation of character. 
Religion may not be taught as a subject-matter, but into each personality should 
enter that vitalizing view of God and man which our Lord Jesus Christ im- 
parted. There must be some substitute for the restraints of home life, particularly 
with the younger students. Professor C. B. Qark says : "The universal freedom, 
the license of college life, is evolving a higher type of self-control upon those 
who exercise voluntary discipline, yet we are purchasing the result at a fearful 
cost of ruin." How foolish to treat boys as if they were grown-up men with 
character formed! Their morals and manners are to be fostered as well as 
their scholastic character disciplined. Strict supervision during the plastic years 
of adolescence is needed. The peril of the young collegian is that the swirl 
of the flood will sweep him to destruction, not that he will fail to have a suffi- 
cient number of temptations to resist to form a strong character. The college 
has a right to have its own standard of personal conduct and a right to exact 
that standard. There are even habits which are allowed in the home which may 
not be allowed with safety in the college where the youth is out from under the 
watchful care of parents. "Whatever takes away interest in study should not be 
allowed, though the discipline should be through self-restraint and self-govern- 
ment rather than by compulsion. 

Denominational colleges attract students of seriousness and soberness. They 
generally come with high purposes, with character directed toward righteousness, 
eager to learn the truth, susceptible to the personality of the teachers, and willing 
to lend themselves to the best relationships of the college. The college should 
be physically, morally, and mentally the safest place for our young people. The 
discipline of regular study, the inspirations of friendship, the enrichment of gen- 
eral reading, the culture derived from the association with scholars, with libra- 
ries, and literary societies in the most impressionable years of one's life — all 
these make the very best atmosphere, and prepare for the best living. But care 
must be extended to the details of personal life. The oversight should be such 
as to know the haunts, the habits, the companions of the student, and his ways 
of spending time and money. The discipline of the church college appeals to 
the highest and best motives. It brings to bear the strongest personal influence. 
It fits the college stage of development and turns out loyal alumni, moral 
citizens, and Christian men. 

4. Through the denominational college the church contributes to the enrich- 
ment of the State. In this way the church can best discharge its educational 
obligations to society and the nation. The college elevates national life by send- 
ing out, year by year, a body of men and women of sound, broad, and conse- 
crated culture to fill the places of trust and public service. The college has a 
larger and higher responsibility for this than the university, for the education 
of the man is a nobler and more abiding* work than the development of the 
scholar. Our Christian colleges are the fountains of moral and spiritual power. 
National wealth lies not in mines, manufactures, commerce, or crops, but in 
spiritual things, in the high ideals embodied in poetry and art, science and litera- 

10 



ture, in the moral worth of the people, their consecration to large purposes, 
their purity and uprightness, their high conception of duty to God and to human- 
ity. The Christian college is a nursery of high-minded, high-principled, well- 
taught, well-trained citizens fitted to fill gracefully the public offices or enter 
honorably the professional, commercial, industrial, and agricultural life. What 
better service can the church render the republic than the careful nurture of 
those who are to guide its destinies and lead its progress? The nation's highest 
need is efficient, enlightened citizens. Any education which bars religion out is 
a poor, one-sided, unreal thing, and does not achieve the larger, richer personal- 
ity. If the great problems of pauperism and crime, intemperance and lawless- 
ness, political and commercial corruption are to be solved, who are to share in 
their solution if not earnest, unselfish, Christian patriots? The Christian scholar 
is the supreme product of the times, the type and ideal of humanity. The Chris- 
tian college stands for idealism. 

It sets a world above man's head to let him see 
How boundless might his soul's horizon be — 
How vast yet of what clear transparency ! 

In no better way than in the educational enterprise can the church permeate the 
nation with Christian ideals and with the Christian spirit. 

5. Denominational colleges provide a fitting outlet for the benevolent im- 
pulses of Christian people. The usefulness of a college is not to be gauged by 
its size nor yet by its material equipment. We may say of it as in 1564 Sir 
Walter Mildmay said to Queen Elizabeth of Emmanuel College in Cambridge 
when he founded it, "I have set an acorn which when it becomes an oak only 
God can tell how glorious will be the fruits thereof." Our greatest colleges have 
had small beginnings. Elihu Yale raised a great monument to himself by the gift 
of three hundred and sixty books and six hundred pounds in money. Down to 
1830 the total annual receipts from all sources at Yale were less than $23,000. 
The Rev. Morgan Edwards, soliciting for Brown University, says, "My patience, 
my feet, and my assurance are much impaired," and up to 1825 the great college 
of Rhode Island had less than $25,000 in endowments. Dartmouth, so rich in 
students after thirty-five years, had only property valued at $13,500 and land 
at $9,500. Princeton, after an existence of one hundred and seven years, had only 
an endowment of $15,000. Yet how these institutions have grown, entirely 
through private benefactions ! Our colleges must have the resources requisite 
for efficiency, for if we keep our colleges poor we shall have poor colleges in 
more senses than one. Compared with educational needs or financial demands 
the wolf does not seem far from the door of even our richest colleges. Wealth 
does not constitute a college, but no college can be constituted without it; for 
it stands in such close relation to organization and efficiency. 

Of five hundred colleges and universities reporting statistics to the trustees 
of the Carnegie Foundation there are ten that possess annual incomes ranging 
from $750,000 upward; and of these three belong to the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, while out of twenty-one institutions with annual incomes ranging from 
$250,000 to $600,000, eleven are Methodist Episcopal. The property of American 
colleges amounts to $400,000,000, and one tenth of this is owned by the colleges 

n 



of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Meager salaries to professors who are public 
benefactors, financial worries, constant poverty, prolonged endeavor, and slow en- 
largement have marked the history of denominational schools; but with the 
increase of wealth to the community has come more liberal support to the 
educational system. College graduates begin to furnish the "sinews of war." 
Very few princely gifts come to institutions supported by the State, while men 
of practical devotion and large benevolence are continually adding to the re- 
sources of our denominational schools, and providing more adequate facilities 
for their work. Our great needs now are first to prune away the starveling 
institutions or provide them with more adequate financial nourishment; and 
secondly, to increase the remuneration to our valuable, efficient, but poorly paid, 
professors. Meanwhile, why could not famous scholars and teachers serve 
more than one institution of the church, the interchange and duplication pro- 
moting scholarship and providing better compensation. The religious motive 
with the humanistic in education is a higher power than the humanistic alone, 
and as long as the church maintains a deep and permanent interest in human 
welfare and the refinements of civilized life so long will denominational colleges 
flourish and wealthy Christian men of broad and national sympathies make gifts 
and devise bequests for their enlargement and perpetuity. 

6. The denominational college is also an outlet for that spirit of loyalty to 
alma mater which the alumni of colleges continually display. Benevolence and 
faith, prayer and self-denying effort are all joined together in these noble under- 
takings. To lay their foundations and rear their superstructures endless sacri- 
fices have been made by teachers, ministers, and lovers of sound learning. No 
society of men can have a greater interest in a college than its own sons. Many 
of our colleges strikingly illustrate this devotion where the graduates have made 
the largest sacrifices in their interests, and where hard-working professors have 
devoted lives of penury to the task of teaching. Wherever true work is done, 
wherever pure motives prevail, wherever amid circumstances of trial, privation, 
and discouragement the heart and hand fail not, but with self-sacrificing forti- 
tude struggle patiently on, there is heroism. Such heroism has been developed 
in our Christian schools and it deserves the respect and gratitude of men. The 
best colleges are, and for generations will be, those that have been endowed by 
individual citizens and their existence is assured. The church which exists for 
high and spiritual purposes can be easily mobilized for their support. They com- 
mand the confidence of broad and catholic-minded men, and each one that has 
twined itself indissolubly around the hearts of its sons will live and grow 
stronger with the growing years. 

7. The denominational college is best adapted to the needs of the many. It is 
the characteristic expression of our American civilization, an expression of 
democracy instead of aristocracy, standing preeminently for character as well 
as for culture. It fills out the Anglo-Saxon idea that a college shall be a place 
not only of sound learning but also of religion. The denominational college is 
for rich and poor alike, and has been a powerful factor in our national 
progress, offering first-class educational advantages at low cost. The question of 
securing a higher education is with many a question of dollars and cents. Large 
institutions are more expensive, for they have all the elaborateness of modern 

12 



college methods and fraternities. The smaller colleges scattered over the land 
meet the demands of young people of moderate means who are in the pursuit 
of higher education; and as long as there are families with moderate incomes 
who have sons and daughters that are ambitious of higher things there must be 
colleges where these advantages may be obtained at moderate expense. These 
seats of learning have nearly all been founded by the denominations. Says Pro- 
fessor Thwing : "Scores of institutions which afford students a respectable educa- 
tion and whose graduates are numbered by hundreds receive an income of less 
than ten thousand dollars each year." Out of such institutions have come our 
present leaders in church and state; and out of these institutions will come the 
future men and women who are to hold this country as a Christian nation. 
The denominational college is the typical college to meet the nation's needs and 
its future is guaranteed, for it will continue to be the recipient of constant 
private benefactions. 

8. There is also, as Dr. Harper has expressed it, the geographical law of 
higher education. Ninety per cent of those who attend colleges select an insti- 
tution within a hundred miles of home. The constituency of the largest institu- 
tions come within the measure of such a radius, and this fact is the explanation 
of the large number of colleges scattered throughout the land. They are a 
necessity and will grow with the growth of the population. As an illustration 
of the dissipation of energy by the church much has been made of the fact that 
there are in the State of Iowa six institutions of higher education in organic con- 
nection with the Methodist Episcopal Church, whereas, by a wise concentration 
of resources, the Methodists could have built up a single institution of great 
power. True, but in a State so large, and with scattered communities, would 
one opulent institution have done the good that has been accomplished by these 
six growing centers of moral and educational influence? The united income of 
these colleges last year (1907) was $219,677, and they received in gifts $352,621. 
It is said that Ohio has more colleges than all the New England States. May 
not this be the reason why she is the "mother of Presidents" and so influential 
in the body politic? The Methodist Episcopal Church has five colleges in Ohio 
wdiose buildings and endowments amount to $2,750,000. The same law holds 
true in the matter of support. Men who have accumulated wealth desire their 
benevolences to be constructive, to be creative, and the law of philanthropy is 
that it is exercised in a territory coextensive with the horizon of the philan- 
thropist. Most men limit their benevolences to causes within touch, and they will 
limit their givings for the cause of higher education to institutions near their 
home. Local pride and local enterprise have sown the land broadcast with 
colleges; yet there is hardly a college of high grade that we can afford to have 
eliminated. So that each institution which has an adequate constituency behind 
it has the assurance of support from the same motives that originated it. 

9. Our last argument is that no matter how richly the State may endow its 
public institutions, no matter how liberally private individuals may endow non- 
church institutions, unless the churches enter upon and cultivate it suitably a large 
field will be left inadquately supplied. Ambassador Bryce in the American 
Commonwealth has said of these small colleges : "They get hold of a multitude 
of poor men, who might never resort to a distant place of education. They set 

13 



learning in a visible form, plain indeed, and humble, but dignified even in her 
humility before the eyes of a rustic people in whom the love of knowledge, 
naturally strong, might never break from the bud into the flower but for the care 
of some zealous gardener. In some of these smaller western colleges one finds 
to-day men of great ability and great attainments, one finds students who are 
receiving an education quite as thorough, though not always as wide, as the best 
eastern universities can give. The higher learning is in no danger." 

A careful compiler of statistics has shown that the patronage of our most 
famous institutions is distinctly local. Eighty-five per cent of Columbia's 
students come from within fifty miles of New York; and even fifty-two per cent 
of Harvard's students are from within a radius of fifty miles, with Boston as 
the hub. A great university with its sumptuous buildings and ample endowments, 
its ancient traditions and its influence, may kindle the fervor and excite the 
imagination of the more aspiring youths. But what is more desirable than to 
bring to each young person in the nation the appreciation of higher education 
and instil in him the desire to obtain its advantages? And this is done not 
so much by the few institutions concentrated in the great centers as by the 
smaller institutions scattered over the land that take a vital hold upon the ideals 
and strivings of the young. Small, compact colleges wisely distributed over the 
country, with a few well-manned departments within the resources at command 
and a professional staff of ripe, scholarly, thoroughly qualified teachers, of un- 
selfish, Christlike spirit is the policy and imperative duty of the church. Such 
a college stands in the community as a monument to the worth of mind; it 
stands for the supremacy of character; it represents good scholarship and a 
fine type of pizty: it embodies the best which the community has attained, for 
whatever is noblest in the church becomes yet nobler in grace and refinement 
through the fructifying power of Christian learning. Such colleges are assured 
of permanency, for they meet the needs of higher education and will maintain 
themselves against all rivals. 

President Thwing has said that education in the United States is not dis- 
organized but unorganized. This want of organization belongs alike to State 
and nondenominational as well as to denominational institutions. Let all the sys- 
tems of education that are in the field work together as allies and not play the 
game of reciprocal obstruction and enfeeblement. We must try to secure 
stronger and worthier colleges, we must have due regard to all existing 
interests, but we must not allow anything to block the way to the greatest public 
good. A college must be judged by what it does, not merely by its buildings 
or wealth or numbers. The pioneer stage of education has passed, and while 
we demand a reasonable security for religious influences it must not be at the 
expense of educational efficiency. In this older stage of educational activity all 
our institutions must insist on better standards and must honestly live up to them. 

Entering college ought to mean practically the same thing in all the colleges 
throughout the country, and the degree of Bachelor of Arts ought to be given 
on the completion of practically the same courses of study. But there is no 
general standard for admission, while legal power is given to confer degrees 
after courses that should not admit to sophomore standing. Weak colleges take 
the high-sounding name of universities, and institutions that are scarcely doing 

14 



the work of secondary schools call themselves colleges. Surely some supervision 
of higher education is needed. The Methodist Episcopal Church since 18S8 has 
through its Board of Education been endeavoring to coordinate its educational 
institutes with the general scheme of higher education, has been doing the work 
of standardization, reducing the weaker institutions to academies, insisting that 
every college shall be a real institution of higher education, and engaging in the 
work of Christian education with unselfishness and academic sincerity. And 
all this with no religious tests and no denominational teaching. Her institu- 
tions are not sectarian. 

Are we fighting a losing battle? In standing for our Christian schools we 
are standing for the true character, motive, and end of education; we are stand- 
ing for the universality of the highest educational opportunity ; we are standing 
for thousands of young people who will find a college education a possibility 
for them through this avenue alone, the fruits of which shall be personalities 
enlarged, strengthened, and enriched; we are standing for the noblest ideals, for 
the exaltation of scholarly Christian character as the highest asset to the nation. 

The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, representing 
thirty denominations and fifty millions of members and adherents, has just been 
held in Philadelphia. Its object is not only to express the fellowship and catholic 
unity of the Christian Church, but to bring the Christian bodies into united serv- 
ice for Christ and the world. This closer unity means more economical adminis- 
tration and a widening usefulness in all departments of Christian effort. And 
as now we have union educational institutions in mission fields, so the home 
churches will parallel this delightful work, and higher Christian education will 
hold them together by an adamantine bond. Each church will cooperate sin- 
cerely, heartily, intelligently in a cause which so profoundly affects the uplifting 
of the nation and the progress of the kingdom. Our denominational colleges 
and universities will come into closer and more helpful association with one 
another and will be better equipped and better sustained. 

Our nondenominational educators must recognize that they are not the 
exclusive patrons nor the exclusive owners of our universities and colleges, and 
that the only wise policy is the one of equal rights and privileges to all. But 
religious training must never be taken as a substitute for scholarship or teach- 
ing efficiency. If the Christian college is to fulfil its function to the church and 
society it must not be inferior to other institutions in the standards of scholar- 
ship and in thorough efficiency. 

We do not believe that the chief difficulty in church control of higher educa- 
tion is the financial. While the resources of many of our institutions are mani- 
festly inadequate, yet there are larger and deeper interests than the money 
question. The economics of educational administration have yet to be studied, 
for in many institutions vast sums are annually expended in ways that do not 
secure results at all comparable with the outlay of money and effort. To carry 
on this work sincerely, heartily, intelligently, with a fair income is better than 
vast expenditures without corresponding results. The Methodist Church will 
do her share in this great work and will do it with a smaller and more pro- 
ductive outlay of money than is possible to the State. 

Baltimore, Maryland. 

15 



JUN 16 WU9 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



01 



9 623 728 8 



